Ruby Chaucer wheels her school books across the University of Texas at Arlington campus, where, at 64, she’s pursuing her top goal: a bachelor’s degree. At the same time, she is working a patient care job at Methodist Dallas Medical Center — and fighting her own health battle, against cancer.

DALLAS

A student of life

When 64-year-old Ruby Chaucer isn’t working her hospital job, or undergoing her own chemo, she works toward her top bucket-list goal: a bachelor’s degree

Five years after she got a job at Methodist Dallas Medical Center — tending to patients, taking their vitals or just sitting with them — she ended up in a hospital bed herself. Chaucer has ovarian cancer and diabetes. She undergoes chemotherapy every other week and takes three shots of insulin and two shots of blood thinners every day.

When Chaucer was diagnosed with cancer in September 2013, she wasn’t sure how long she had. She didn’t know if she’d live long enough to get her associate’s degree, which she’d just started working toward, much less her bachelor’s degree, which she hadn’t yet thought to pursue.

She has the first degree. She’s working on the second. But her prognosis remains nebulous. She could die tomorrow, she says. Any of us could.

What she cared about was school. She took tests for her classes online from her hospital bed. She wrote essays on a cramped little desk at home. She did her homework while her hair was falling out, and she did her homework when her kidneys were shutting down.

Sometimes, she would cry. But she never let anyone see.

She did it for herself. But she also did it for her son, Brian, who died in 2010, when he was 35. She said Brian worried about her when he was alive, worried about whether she’d be able to take care of herself.

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Brian is her guardian angel, she says. By returning to school, she’s shown him that he doesn’t have to worry anymore.

“I just want him to know that his mama’s happy and she’s goin’ on with her life,” she says.

Senior students

Of the estimated 51,000 students enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington, less than 50 are older than 65. That's 0.1 percent.

Crossing the stage

On Valentine’s Day 2014, Chaucer underwent surgery to remove any bits of her reproductive organs that might harbor cancerous growths. After the surgery, she was chemo-free for seven months. When she resumed chemotherapy, it was a less aggressive form, one whose side effects were — and are — comparatively mild.

Her hair grew back dark and soft. She wanted to eat at McDonald’s again — her favorite. She didn’t feel so sick.

And in May of this year, wearing a satiny black robe, she crossed the stage at Tarrant County College’s commencement ceremony and accepted her associate’s degree.

She was 64 years old, with a terminal illness. Maybe two. And yet, on that night, she felt “giddy,” she says.

She immediately enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington, determined to finish what she’d started.

“I can’t live in fear,” she says.

A bite of Milky Way

Chaucer rolls a black briefcase — she calls it a push bag — across the UT-Arlington campus. She wears a big smile, which bubbles into frequent laughter.

“It makes me feel better when I laugh,” she says.

Meeting with her UTA academic adviser, Steve Kirkindall, Chaucer welcomes the news that her bachelor’s degree program won’t require her to take advanced math courses.

She stops in Randall Hall for a short rest before an appointment with her academic adviser, Steve Kirkindall. Chaucer pulls out a half-eaten Milky Way and takes a big bite.

She’s forgotten to eat breakfast after giving herself a shot of insulin that morning.

“I’m sorry, my sugar is low,” she says.

Once she’s in Kirkindall’s office, the two of them go back and forth about her schedule. Chaucer is taking abridged summer sessions of American literature and history of civilization. She’s relieved to learn that she doesn’t need any more credits in math or science, two of her least favorite subjects.

Kirkindall jots notes, making sure Chaucer knows how many upper- and lower-level classes she still needs. He reminds her to pace herself. Her goal is to graduate in 2 1/2 years, but she mustn’t force herself to stick to that timetable, her adviser says.

Bed and computer

When she gets home, Chaucer sets up at the desktop computer in her bedroom. Some days, she’ll spend 10 hours there. She likes to stay ahead on her homework.

“It’s hard, but I press my way,” she says.

Her one indulgence is SpongeBob SquarePants, a comforting cartoon show that makes her laugh.

Chaucer works at the desktop computer in her bedroom. Between her summer classes in history of civilization and American literature, she sometimes spends 10 hours a day in front of the screen. “This is my life,” she says. “On this computer or in that bed.”

The bedroom is decorated with an eclectic mix of ceramic figurines and family photos. Above her computer is her framed associate’s degree. Dangling beside it is a black graduation tassel bearing a gold “15.”

Using a decade-old day planner as a mouse pad, she clicks through YouTube videos about the Chauvet Cave for history of civilization. She pauses frequently to take notes, her handwriting a loopy cursive.

Every few minutes, she coughs into a wad of tissue. She’s fighting off the remnants of a respiratory illness that’s bogged her down for a week.

“This is my life,” she says. “On this computer or in that bed.”

Love renewed

Chaucer spent her early childhood living in the projects of South Dallas. Her family moved to a little frame house in Oak Cliff when she was 8.

Today, from her front stoop, she can see the elementary school she attended more than 50 years ago. Her high school was just around the corner. She remembers walking to school every day. She remembers hearing her mother teaching her father to read.

“I’ve always loved school,” she says, a pearly grin making her squint.

Chaucer had her first child at 17, but she got her high school diploma nevertheless. She took jobs ringing orders at McDonald’s and sacking groceries at Kroger. For a while, she was a maid. She says she often “fell in love with” the families she cleaned for.

During a shift at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, Chaucer hugs Sahada Weldon, a car crash patient. “It’s been an inspiration, you comin’ here tonight,” Weldon tells her. “You’re definitely in my prayers,” Chaucer says, giving Weldon a hug and a kiss. “And you pray for me, too. I need all the prayers I can get.”

In the 1980s, she became a certified nursing assistant. She worked in nursing homes until she got her job at Methodist in 2008.

Her parents were sick, so she moved back into the little Oak Cliff house of her childhood.

At Methodist, she can’t help befriending her patients. She talks to them when they’re lonely. She’s been at their side when they’ve died. She goes to lots of funerals.

“When people are dying, it’s a kinda scary feeling,” Chaucer says. “If you can just sit there and hold their hand, it means a lot to them.”

When Brian, her son, died five years ago of complications from AIDS, she held his hand the same way.

A couple of years after his death, she started going to Tarrant County College. She knew he would have loved that.

“I want him to be proud of me,” she says.

Pray for each other

As a “patient sitter” at Methodist, Chaucer works with a lot of young patients, some of them suicidal.

“Sometimes I cry with them,” she says. “And then I find myself counseling when they wanna talk.”

One evening, Chaucer, in her green scrubs, is sitting with a 29-year-old who has been thrown from a car in a crash.

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It’s late, but the patient, Sahada Weldon, doesn’t tire of the visit. The young woman plays with her neon yellow acrylic nails as she speaks. Her head bobs when she laughs, her hair a bleached coil of thick braids.

“You goin’ to school, too?” Weldon asks.

“Oh, yes, and it’s kickin’ my butt!” Chaucer says, laughing.

Weldon tells Chaucer that she, too, wants to return to school. She wants to learn fashion design and create her own plus-size line.

The women talk for almost an hour, about motherhood, living in Brooklyn, wearing tall heels.

Less than 12 hours later, Chaucer, still in her work scrubs, reclines in a chair at Parkland with a light blue blanket draped over her legs. Her left arm rests on a pillow, hooked up to an IV.

Even after a full night of work, she’s still chatty. Even as she waits for the chemo to enter her bloodstream, she’s smiling.

“It’s just part of my life,” she says of the treatments.

A few days later, though, Chaucer admits she’s getting tired of chemo.

After work, Chaucer transitions from comforter to patient. Even as she waits for the chemo to enter her bloodstream at Parkland Memorial Hospital, she’s smiling. “It’s just part of my life,” she says of the treatments. She knows that if she stops them, the tumors could blossom again.

She knows she can’t stay on it forever. She knows that if she stops, tumors could start to bloom inside her again. She doesn’t want to go through surgery again.

“It’s never gonna get well,” she says.

Lately, Chaucer has amended her bucket list. She wants to see her seven grandchildren graduate from school. The youngest grandchild turns 4 next week. Graduation is a long way off.

“I may be dead tomorrow,” Chaucer says. “But every day I wanna do something, because it’s precious for me to be alive.”

Ruby Chaucer gets her bearings when she arrives at the University of Texas at Arlington for a meeting with her academic adviser.

Chaucer shares a laugh and some lunch with her sister after her meeting with her college adviser.

Chaucer starts into her world civilization textbook that arrived in the mail earlier in the day.

Chaucer laughs with a visitor at her Oak Cliff home. From her front stoop, she can see the elementary school she attended when she was a child.

Chaucer's associate's degree from Tarrant County College hangs on her wall. She received the degree in May at the age of 64.

Chaucer, who works at Methodist Dallas Medical, wheels her schoolbook-filled bag through the halls of the hospital as she moves between patient rooms. Her goal is to graduate from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2 1/2 years.